Three proposals were unveiled Tuesday for a monument at the San Francisco Civic Center honoring the men and women who served in the armed forces.

Two of the three proposals are fairly conventional. One features a reflecting pool with a folded bronze flag, and another is an octagonal stone monument containing soil from battlefields where Americans lost their lives.

A third is startlingly different. The centerpiece is a wreath made of material that resembles military dog tags, suspended above buried battlefield soil like a halo.

The memorial, financed by private funds, would be placed between the War Memorial Opera House and the Veterans Building, just across Van Ness Avenue from City Hall. So far, more than $1.7 million has been raised.

Retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Michael Myatt said the veterans memorial would fulfill a promise made to San Francisco's veterans when the Opera House and the Veterans Building were constructed in the 1930s. The memorial sponsors say the memorial court between the two buildings was intended to be a place where citizens could "pay tribute to the veterans' sacrifices, a serene place to reflect and to honor those who served our nation defending our freedom."

The reflecting pool with a folded bronze flag was intended, say designers Larry Kirkland and J. Douglass Macy, to fit in with "the Beaux Arts grandeur of the (Civic Center) site." The folded bronze flag, which represents the flag given to survivors of fallen veterans, would be elevated above the reflecting pool.

Another design, by Susan Narduli and Andrea Cochran, is called "Passages of Remembrance." The octagonal-shaped memorial includes soil from the battlefields of France to the Middle East and from wars in between.

"This project begins with the earth of foreign battlefields and with memory," as Narduli and Cochran describe it. It also includes a powerful poem by Archibald MacLeish that ends: "We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us."

The third finalist - "Wreath of Remembrance" from Norman Lee, Scott Slaney and Ricardo Supiciche- has a wreath of military dog tags suspended above the ground by guide wires, an idea that the designers say "represents notions of eternity, continuity and memory." The dog tags would move with the wind, producing a chiming sound and would be illuminated at night.

The veterans memorial is a joint project of the San Francisco War Memorial and the Performing Arts Center, together with veterans groups, the city Arts Commission, the Opera and the Symphony.

Veterans memorial

The three design finalists will be available for public viewing in the Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center starting at noon today and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. until the last week of June. The public will be invited to submit written comments on the ideas. A final selection will be made by June 27 by a steering committee headed by former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Secretary of Defense William Perry.